Arahmaiani's Art Challenges Biopolitics and Feminist Canon

Angela Dimitrakaki's essay in Afterall Journal 42 (published September 20, 2016) examines Indonesian artist Arahmaiani's work and life as a prefigured history of global contradictions. Born in Bandung in 1961, Arahmaiani's 1994 work 'Etalase' juxtaposed condoms, a Buddha icon, and the Qur'an, resulting in death threats from Islamic fundamentalists and forcing her exile to Australia and Thailand. The essay critiques the feminist art canon through Roberta Smith's 2007 New York Times review of 'Global Feminisms' at the Brooklyn Museum, which deemed body-oriented work 'old-fashioned.' Arahmaiani's 2015 installation 'Petaka (The Disaster)' referenced the 1965–66 anti-communist purge in Indonesia, using piles of used clothes to address ongoing historical trauma. Her 1997 performance 'Handle without Care' combined Balinese dance, Coca-Cola, and toy guns to critique consumerism and ritual. Dimitrakaki argues Arahmaiani's work exposes the alliance of capital, state, and religion in biopolitical governance, and calls for feminism to move beyond project-based mentality toward materialist analysis of lived lives under globalisation.